"Light-Horse Harry blazes across the pages of Ryan Cole's narrative like a meteor-and his final crash is as destructive. Cole tells his story with care, sympathy, and where necessary, sternness. This book is a great, and sometimes harrowing read." -Richard Brookhiser, senior editor at National Review and author of Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington
Who was "Light-Horse Harry" Lee?
Gallant Revolutionary War hero. Quintessential Virginia cavalryman. George Washington's trusted subordinate and immortal eulogist. Robert E. Lee's beloved father. Founding father who shepherded the Constitution through the Virginia Ratifying Convention.
But Light-Horse Harry Lee was also a con man. A beachcomber. Imprisoned for debt. Caught up in sordid squabbles over squalid land deals. Maimed for life by an angry political mob.
Light-Horse Harry Lee's life was tragic, glorious, and dramatic, but perhaps because of its sad, ignominious conclusion historians have rarely given him his due-until now.
Now historian Ryan Cole presents this soldier and statesman of the founding generation with all the vim and vigor that typified Lee himself. Scouring hundreds of contemporary documents and reading his way into Lee's life, political philosophy, and character, Cole gives us the most intimate picture to date of this greatly awed but hugely talented man whose influence has reverberated from the founding of the United States to the present day.
Autorentext
RYAN COLE, a former assistant to Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and speechwriter at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, holds degrees in history and journalism from Indiana University. He has written extensively about American history and literature for the Wall Street Journal, National Review, the New Crite- rion, Civil War Times, the American Inter- est, and the Indianapolis Star. Additionally, he has written for Indiana University and the Lumina Foundation, and he served on the staff of the U.S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.
Klappentext
He was a dashing military hero who led the fight for America's independence.
His son would later become the general who almost tore America apart.
Henry Lee III, whose name "Light-Horse" came from his legendary exploits with mounted troops and skill in the saddle, was a dashing cavalry commander and hero of America's War for Independence. By now, most Americans have forgotten about Light-Horse Harry Lee, the father of Confederate General Robert E. Lee; but this new biography reveals he may be one of the most fascinating figures in our nation's history. A daring military commander, Lee was also an early American statesman whose passionate argument in favor of national unity helped ratify the Constitution.
When President George Washington needed to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion, he sent an 13,000-strong army into western Pennsylvania with his old friend Light-Horse Harry Lee at its head. When Washington died, it was Lee who famously eulogized him as "first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen." With incredible stories about Light-Horse Harry Lee's relationships with famous men and women-including George and Martha Washington, Nathanael Greene, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr-this book paints a rich portrait of an under-appreciated and complex American character, and also provides unique new insight into the upbringing and motivations of Lee's infamous son, General Robert E. Lee.